I signed up last night. It looks like Kush still needs to enter sliders and settings. I would also request that time savers be disabled.

And on this I m probably going to be in the minority, and it is not a big deal wither way, but I would also disable custom playbooks. It's especially not a big deal here, as I don't think we have any serious cheesers in our league. I just prefer to be forced to sacrifice certain plays or formations spending on whose playbook I choose.

But then, I know I'm the oddball on this.

Yeah, the league setup took me so long last night, that I never got a chance to set up the sliders

I am going to definitely disable the time savers. Maybe we can take a vote on custom playbooks, I agree with Jayhawker on disabling them.

I am going to recreate the league tonight to fix the mistake I made with Tennessee, right now I am writing down that I have as far as where I put all the teams, because to do it from scratch again might cause my wife to divorce me, lol. I will try to do it tonight, but I still might not get to the sliders until Saturday.

Do you plan on disabling just custom play books or are you also saying that you have to play with the playbook of the team you are selecting? Custom playbook functionality is great because you can eliminate plays you'll never run from an established playbook. Saying it is for cheesers is pretty condescending given that it allows you to focus how you like to play the game in the terms of plays and formations. Also, there is some satisfaction to having a tight playbook that you are comfortable with. To me there is no difference between a custom playbook and choosing Team X, but running with team Ys playbook. To my knowledge the only play that really is Getting abused by some is the toss out of a number of power running sets.

I was a young "Oregonian" back then, but that was one of the first sports names I remember once I started watching ESPN all the time. Was he #21 on the Rose Bowl team in like 1994 or '95? I could google it, but I want to test my memory.

Do you plan on disabling just custom play books or are you also saying that you have to play with the playbook of the team you are selecting? Custom playbook functionality is great because you can eliminate plays you'll never run from an established playbook. Saying it is for cheesers is pretty condescending given that it allows you to focus how you like to play the game in the terms of plays and formations. Also, there is some satisfaction to having a tight playbook that you are comfortable with. To me there is no difference between a custom playbook and choosing Team X, but running with team Ys playbook. To my knowledge the only play that really is Getting abused by some is the toss out of a number of power running sets.

Just custom playbooks. I think we're avoiding teams from putting 6-10 plays in their playbook and running with what works. There is a huge difference in running another team's playbook and customizing specific plays, IMO. When you run another team's playbook, you may get certain plays you want, at the cost of not having certain other plays that you want.

Do you plan on disabling just custom play books or are you also saying that you have to play with the playbook of the team you are selecting? Custom playbook functionality is great because you can eliminate plays you'll never run from an established playbook. Saying it is for cheesers is pretty condescending given that it allows you to focus how you like to play the game in the terms of plays and formations. Also, there is some satisfaction to having a tight playbook that you are comfortable with. To me there is no difference between a custom playbook and choosing Team X, but running with team Ys playbook. To my knowledge the only play that really is Getting abused by some is the toss out of a number of power running sets.

Just custom playbooks. I think we're avoiding teams from putting 6-10 plays in their playbook and running with what works. There is a huge difference in running another team's playbook and customizing specific plays, IMO. When you run another team's playbook, you may get certain plays you want, at the cost of not having certain other plays that you want.

That's how I see it.

And when I said cheesers, it was in regard to saying that eliminating custom playbooks is not as big of a deal for us, because we don't cheese. I wasn't saying that using a custom playbook was cheese.

But if you wanted to funnel all of the plays that work best in the game into one playbook, that is pretty cheesy. But if you wanted to create a more personal One Back offense by culling plays from the several team playbooks that run that, that would probably not be. If you want to run a pro style offense, but also have a bunch of triple option plays in which you formation sub a WR at QB for those plays, that would be lame.

But sticking with team playbooks eliminates most of that confusion. But I won't run the Run and Shoot with SMU, as I think the One Back fits the team better.

"I suggest we imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." - Castiel

I run the Multiple playbook. I have run this for the past 3 years. Any team I run gets this playbook and I recruit to cater to it. As anyone who has played me knows, I run and then I run, and then I run some more. I might pass 15 times a game tops.

firesloth wrote:

I can't believe I'm sitting here pulling for Michigan. I feel so dirty.

I think we should disable the time savers and custom playbooks. IMO, why choose that team if you are not going to use their playbook.

I don't think we should have to stick with one playbook. I sure never did. We would definitely want to be able to adjust year-to-year.

But I am in favor of more restrictive rules like forcing you to pick a style, like Pro or One Back, and then limit yourself only to playbooks of teams that run that. Same with defense. Most teams do not run a mix of 3-4 and 4-3. These is a mixed defense playbook, but it gets there by sacrificing a lot of plays.

But I think that even goes too far. It would be cool if you got dinged in player ratings for switching playbooks too often, or boosts for sticking with one.

"I suggest we imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." - Castiel

I run the Multiple playbook. I have run this for the past 3 years. Any team I run gets this playbook and I recruit to cater to it. As anyone who has played me knows, I run and then I run, and then I run some more. I might pass 15 times a game tops.

Once I gave up on the triple option, I started going with One Back, and occasionally Multiple. I really like NIU's Multiple offene last year. NIU is listed as a Pistol now, which was part of their multiple offense last year. I could actually see the Pistol working well with SMU, though.

"I suggest we imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." - Castiel

I say run what playbook you want. You are the head coach. NCAA isn't calling Oregon up and saying, "Hey, we saw you run some under center plays last week, cut that out! You are only a shotgun formation type team!"

firesloth wrote:

I can't believe I'm sitting here pulling for Michigan. I feel so dirty.

I guess I don't really see the difference between choosing a stock playbook because it fits your team better or crafting a playbook that fits your team. There are no golden plays and it still revolves around being able to execute. My discussion is more to get an understanding that limitations put in place for the sake of it or because an unproven fear of something that hasn't occurred. If you are trying to get a "sim" feel it seems you would dictate using the team playbook of the team you are playing. Trying to understand the limitations.

I think we should disable the time savers and custom playbooks. IMO, why choose that team if you are not going to use their playbook.

Loyalties! There are some issues running out of the spread offense in this year's game that weren't as prevalent last year. ND's playbook has no I formation plays, one toss play, two counter plays (that usually give up yardage), etc. Last year it had more of the Ace formation plays and even some I formation. The way the off-tackle and draw plays from the shotgun work in this year's game, it is very difficult to get a running game going with the default playbook. I will definitely be switching to at least a one back offense if not a multiple offense if we cannot use custom playbooks.

One argument I would have in favor of custom playbooks? The ability to reorder your plays. To me, the most commonly-called play in a given line of plays should be associated with the A button. By default, most of the formations have an 8 man blitz associated with the A button for defensive formations. The first thing I did in my custom 3-4 defensive playbook is move those plays (which allow easy loft passes for big gains) where they're hard to find (or accidentally call).

Thus, custom playbooks allow one to put the least broken defensive calls in the first and last two play calling lines for a formation so that I have easy access to them in the short amount of time allowed to call a defensive play.

One argument I would have in favor of custom playbooks? The ability to reorder your plays. To me, the most commonly-called play in a given line of plays should be associated with the A button. By default, most of the formations have an 8 man blitz associated with the A button for defensive formations. The first thing I did in my custom 3-4 defensive playbook is move those plays (which allow easy loft passes for big gains) where they're hard to find (or accidentally call).

Thus, custom playbooks allow one to put the least broken defensive calls in the first and last two play calling lines for a formation so that I have easy access to them in the short amount of time allowed to call a defensive play.

This is a pretty good use of the custom playbooks. While I got pretty good at digging up and finding t he plays I want, there are times it is tougher than it needs to be. I'm definitely okay with using custom playbooks with some gentleman agreements for how we want to use them.

"I suggest we imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." - Castiel

I say run what playbook you want. You are the head coach. NCAA isn't calling Oregon up and saying, "Hey, we saw you run some under center plays last week, cut that out! You are only a shotgun formation type team!" :P

No, but Oregon is limited in real life by the fact that there's no way their players could learn every play that every team runs (insert your student-athlete joke of choice here).

That said, I don't care either way.

"You realise that you're questioning the internal logic of a game in which a fat plumber rides a dinosaur in space?" Jonman

Glad I put "No Conference Games until Week 5" for both Conferences. Got a nice big old "F*CK YOU KUSH" from the schedule maker. Lovely

Firesloth, tried to work around your schedule to give you a week 3 bye, but guess that's not happening, as you have Michigan, Michigan St and Iowa to start the year in the 1st 3 weeks. Happy Big 10 hunting!!!!! You also play SMU and TCU, so your Human vs Human schedule is all set.

Schedule maker also decided it really doesn't like Tennessee. Both times I created the league, it gave Tenn 4 home games. Really?! At least it split the conference games up nicely, so I can change the game location on the remaining non-conference games.

I can only change the schedules of owners that have joined the league, so sign up by the end of the weekend, and we might be able to roll by Monday night.

*EDIT*
Hansom, I have a little more flexibility with your schedule, though your Week 3 is locked as well. I am going to give you a Week 1 HvH matchup, most likely against SMU. Fortunately, both you and Firesloth play a XBox opponent in Week 3, so we may be able to get through your time off without a hiccup. Regardless, we will wait for both of you to get back before advancing.

Don't sweat the schedule too much, Kush. If it is like last year, the game will flip home and aways on you for no apparent reason. It was frustrating to sit down and hammer out a schedule, and then find a team with too many road games just because the game glitched it.

What was the final conference set-up?

I'll get signed up later today.

Fair warning, my easy-go scheduling is probably a thing of the past. I'm moving on to UMSL this fall and not only am I taking 17 hours, but I am going to be forced to take an evening class each semester, as that is the only time some of my math classes are offered.

Combine that with my daughter starting high school in a fairly intensive college prep program (they put five kids in Ivy League schools last year, out of 60 in their graduating class), as well as playing for the school's wind ensemble and jazz band, and playing sax with JazzU outside of school, and it is going to be a crazy two years.

But I am sure I will find a way to play some football. I'm pretty excited by SMU's roster this year. It will be fun competing with the other Texas schools, especially TCU, for recruits.

"I suggest we imbibe copious amounts of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." - Castiel